


the roll of the waves

by WolffyLuna



Category: Original Work
Genre: (which is somehow not a canonical tag?), Established Relationship, Loyalty, Other, objectum sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25375567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Some on land and in the Navy say that a pirate’s first and only love is gold, or maybe the violence that they use to get it. Lady Maria’s crew would counter that they are perfectly capable of loving other people like ‘normal’ human beings. They’d point to their bonnies back on shore, or their matelots on crew.Neither is right for Maria, for she loves her ship and the sea.
Relationships: Pirate Captain/Their Ship/The Sea
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	the roll of the waves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ba_lailah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ba_lailah/gifts).



> I hope you like this! I really loved your prompt for this ship.

Some on land and in the Navy say that a pirate’s first and only love is gold, or maybe the violence that they use to get it. Lady Maria’s crew would counter that they are perfectly capable of loving other people like ‘normal’ human beings. They’d point to their bonnies back on shore, or their matelots on crew.

Maria—well, depending on the day she’d either say that both sides had a crippling lack of imagination, or she would concede (as much as she hated giving any in the King’s service the satisfaction of having a _point_ ) that the Navy was along the right track, at least for her.

She did not love blood or money all that much, but she was never all that good at loving _people_. Liking she could do, but love? That sort of love didn’t come naturally to her.

She loved her ship, the _Monsoon Strider--_ the name both a hope and a statement of fact. She could run through any weather, given a capable enough crew. She couldn’t stand through any storm, but she’d handled all the ones ol’ Neptune had thrown at her with grace, aplomb and deadly speed.

It’d been love at first sight, when she’d seen her after the shipwrights were done with her. She wasn’t her first ship; she’d served with her mentor Captain Redeye on the _Bonnie Prince_ , and he was a fine enough ship. She got on with him. But she and the _Bonnie Prince_ didn’t have that spark, the spark fanned into a flame as she took _Monsoon Strider_ out of port and into the open ocean, felt the way she rolled under her feet and chased after the wind.

She knew every detail of her ship, from the length of the masts to the tiniest nail. They knew each other well.

They’d developed a partnership, a trust. She treated _Monsoon Strider_ well, and she treated her well in turn. They worked together, as one body, one soul. They owed each other their lives, and it was a worthwhile debt.

But the ship was not her only love.

She would not be a pirate if she did not love the Sea.

Other sailors would say they loved the Sea too, and while she’d agree with some, other’s she was pretty sure they only _liked_ the Sea.

(She wasn’t concerned about _Strider_ being jealous—the ship was made for the Sea as much as she was. She imagined they had their own relationship with each other, one she was not privy to understanding.)

She’d talked to one of the men of the cloth back in the last port they were in. He talked about how God loved everyone infinitely, unconditionally, how he could feel God’s love the whole time. She understood the appeal of loving, of being loved, by something so much larger than you, that you were barely relevant on their scale. But she didn’t get the unconditional part. Being loved for your mere existence, without any effort on her part? That wasn’t much of a relationship of mutual respect. And that wasn’t what she wanted.

She wanted to be loved for _herself_.

Her and the ship were a relationship of equals. They needed each other equally, neither of ‘em would make it very far without the other. That was a kind of mutual respect.

She and the sea were outmatched; she’d be a fool not to the see that. The sea was so much larger, bigger than almost anything in the world except the sky. The sea didn’t care about her, or at least didn’t care in the way humans did. The sea cared about skill, and grit, and the sea would do what the sea would do. The sea had given her a fair few licks in her time—but she didn’t take it personal, because it wasn’t. Storms were just the sea obeying its nature, and she had neither the power nor inclination to stop it.

But she liked to think she’d been given the sea's favour every time she managed to live through a storm. She proved herself worthy of second love, and in return got to live another day to feel the swells beneath her feet and the salt whipped up by the wind.

And that’s why she sailed. The ship under her feet, and the sea that they rolled across—those were her two loves.


End file.
